Family album

By: Louise Carroll

Wednesday

Sep 12, 2007 at 12:01 AM

ELLWOOD CITY - When lawyer Herman Feldman recently traced the origin of a 1922 phonograph, he found himself immersed in the history of Ellwood City, and his own family, more than three-quarters of a century ago.

About 70 years after it first came into his possession, Feldman put together an origin for the phonograph, a Golden Throated Claxtonola patented in 1922, manufactured by Brenard Manufacturing Co. of Iowa City, Iowa. In the process, he learned a lot about his own family's path in the New World.

Feldman recently donated the phonograph, one of the most advanced and luxurious of its day, to the Ellwood City Historical Society, and it can be seen there.

The machine was bought by Feldman's uncle Nathan and passed down to Feldman. "More than 70 years ago, Nathan Feldman was one of the most recognizable names in Ellwood City, but today few remember," he said.

Nathan was born in poverty in Russian Poland between 1886 and 1888 and came to Ellwood City in 1902 or 1903 without any kind of vocational or business training and little knowledge of the English language.

Nathan's older brother, Hyman, who had come to the United States in 1900, sent the money for Nathan to join him here. Hyman came to New Castle, taught Hebrew and worked in a clothing store. He saved enough money to start his own store and perhaps Nathan first worked there.

In 1915, a little more than 10 years after he came to the United States, Nathan bought real estate in Ellwood City and established a furniture store at 517 Lawrence Ave. A decade later, the store was advertised as the largest furniture store between Youngstown and Pittsburgh.

The store, now the location of Gallie's Hallmark Shop, had a 60-foot frontage, three floors of furniture and a basement. It extended back 180 feet. The store had an elevator, the only one in town at the time. In addition, the store had a variety of business equipment, including delivery trucks.

Behind the building was a garage large enough to hold two trucks. There were more than 15 people on his payroll.

Nathan started his furniture store in partnership with Max Bolotin. The partnership dissolved in 1930. There is still a Bolotin Furniture store in Hermitage.

"Ellwood City had more than 100 little retail stores on Lawrence Avenue, Fifth Street, Sixth Street and other locations," Herman Feldman said. "There were four or more shoe stores, four or five women's clothing stores and a half-dozen men's clothing stores. Today, they are all gone."

Ellwood City had a ladies hat store, many small auto-repair garages, little shops that sold sheet music, gifts, greeting cards, phonograph needles and flowers, and there were hardware stores, shoemaker shops, wallpaper stores and dry-goods stores.

During business hours, people strode up and down the streets, and on Saturday nights, there were crowds of all ages.

Nathan sold the store in 1936 to move to Florida, where he died in 1937. The furniture store continued to operate for 40 years, first as Reuben's and later Bolotin's. Herman Feldman sold the building in 1980.

Nathan and his wife, Eva, had no children. Herman Feldman, who was 12 when his uncle died, remembers him as the pillar of the family, the giant everyone leaned on.

"We are left with little of Nathan Feldman," Herman Feldman said. "The phonograph, a few old photographs and a news clipping are all that remains."

Little is left of the Ellwood City of 70 years ago. Not one store on Lawrence Avenue, or Fifth or Sixth streets, the main business district, is owned by descendants of those independent business owners.

Feldman dedicated the donation of the phonograph to the memory of Nathan Feldman and to the many merchants who once filled Ellwood's business district.

Louise Carroll can be reached online at wlc7@verizon.net.

The Feldman family

The Feldman family was from a part of the Russian Empire that is now Poland.

The lack of exact family history is due to many things, such as: Czarist Russia did not maintain many records; two World Wars; and numerous invasions of Poland by Germany from the west and Russia from the east, damaging or destroying what records did exist.

There also was a superstition that kept people from knowing the exact details of their births.

"My mother explained to me that it was best not to know the date of your birth because of a superstition about the Angel of Death, Malchamoves," Herman Feldman said. "Malchamoves roamed the countryside looking for recruits to the next world. He would tap a person on the shoulder and ask when they were born. A specific answer was always fatal. If you didn't know your birthday, it threw Malchamoves into confusion, and you escaped with your life."

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